


Burdened

by boxofhatebrains



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Angst, Comfort/Angst, Denial of Feelings, M/M, Major Character Injury, Painkillers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 21:20:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30061686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boxofhatebrains/pseuds/boxofhatebrains
Summary: Trowa comforts Quatre after his injury from Dorothy Catalonia. However, it's so much harder than he thought it would be.GW White Day Event 2021 from Tumblr's @thisweekingundameventsTHEMES:3. Worst ways to say ‘I love you.’
Relationships: Trowa Barton/Quatre Raberba Winner
Kudos: 5





	Burdened

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea how Tumblr works. I am old. Anyway, here's some angst because...it's me. 
> 
> Song: Vesuvius by Sufjan Stevens

Quatre had never needed painkillers before. Sure, maybe ibuprofen for the aches and pains along the way. For the bruising and swelling after more difficult fights. But not like this.

After surgery, he woke quickly, still weary and worried. Had they won? Really won? Was Heero all right? Were the Maganacs? Miss Noin? Miss Relena?

Rashid and Trowa were patient as the questions cycled, recycled, and then would spontaneously bubble back up into another round. Had they won? Really won? Were the people united? Did that happen or did he dream that? And they would repeat, again, watching the tears of joy refilled and replenished, before, exhausted, he would fall asleep for a few more minutes.

After a few hours, Rashid offered Trowa reprieve – he could look after Master Quatre, Trowa could step out to make plans or contact his family. But no, Trowa shook his head and leaned back into his chair a few feet away from Quatre’s bedside. That was enough of a hint for Rashid.

And after the Maganacs checked on Master Quatre, and the other gundam pilots made their way, one-by-one, to see if Quatre was all right, Rashid moved towards the door.

“I think he needs his rest,” Rashid said by the door, one last offer.

“Yes,” Trowa agreed and tilted his head in quiet defiance, “I’ll make sure he gets it.”

Rashid nodded, paused, but left. It wasn’t that Master Quatre wouldn’t want it that way, but Rashid wasn’t sure if _he_ wanted it that way. He never had a moment with Trowa, a one-on-one small aside in a quiet moment, and he realized that folly. Obviously it was needed. Trowa, unlike Quatre or Duo, was difficult to read. And he trusted Master Quatre’s decision to be close to Trowa, but Rashid still felt like something needed to be said between him and Trowa…something of substance.

Minutes later, Quatre woke again and Trowa quietly assured him before anything could be asked. “Everyone is all right. We’re at peace.”

Quatre tried to focus on Trowa’s face, but it kept flickering, tilting. “Even Heero?”

“Yes, he was here an hour ago. Everyone saw you already. Everyone’s fine,” he reiterated.

Relief swelled in Quatre’s eyes, filling and spilling over. He had dreamed of this moment all of his life. He had lost his father over this war, had lost some faith, had lost a part of himself. But it wasn’t in vain. They had peace. This was real.

He surprised Trowa with the next question, “And you? Are you all right?”

This diverted from the usual line of questions. Trowa smirked softly, “Yeah, I’m right here.”

“But with everything…are you okay?” He touched his heart and his eyes snapped down at disbelief at the wires and IVs attached to his hand. He realized how pale and frail he looked. Like moonlight. Just a figment of light…

Trowa chuckled despite himself and the situation and gently pulled Quatre’s hand away from his chest and rested it at his side again. Trowa felt so warm, almost feverish, and Quatre wondered how long he had felt like that. How much he wanted that hand on his chest, grounding himself there in the moment as the room spun around him. He wanted Trowa to push him into the bed, to still his body and mind.

“How are you feeling?” Trowa asked, still close to him. His voice felt like a river Quatre could sink into and be swept away. It was so smooth and low. No rocks, only current.

“Dizzy…drowsy… _drugged_ ,” he said with a laugh and held his hand up again. He wanted to see those tubes enter his hand, seeping that liquid into his body, filling him, giving him weight. Water on the moon.

Once again, Trowa brought it down. Once again, he held it up, laughing at the game, until Trowa took his hand from him and held it. So hot. Trowa’s skin was so hot. Quatre felt that secret everywhere in his body.

He said it, “You’re so hot.”

Trowa had no idea what to make of that. He pushed it aside, logically, that Quatre was under heavy sedatives. He was correct, he was drugged. He wouldn’t make much sense.

“Thanks,” is all Trowa said, but felt disappointed that he couldn’t appreciate those words. Those careless and silly words from someone in a vulnerable state. He remembered his thoughts after being shot by Quatre, as he drifted in the cold of space…how alone he felt. How cold it was.

Quatre tried to focus on Trowa’s eyes, even thought they also flipped and fluctuated. One still obscured by his hair, but Quatre could catch the edges, the eyelashes.

“When are you going back?” Quatre asked, suddenly afraid. Suddenly alone. He could see Trowa walking away, like when they first met and Trowa had turned away from his estate, without looking back. Quatre wished for…he didn’t know. Something longer, something closer.

“When you’ve healed some more.”

“I wish you could stay forever,” Quatre gently said.

Again, caught in that strange place of placating and shifting his own emotions, Trowa replied, “Thanks.”

It had been hard to find Quatre like that in the Zero system room with Dorothy. It had been hard to hold him and place him back into Sandrock, to buckle his heaving body into the machine and get blood on his knuckles. _Quatre’s blood_ on his knuckles, and to have to wipe it away. Trowa himself was exhausted, emotionally and physically, but he wouldn’t let Quatre be alone like he had been.

“You’re sad,” Quatre whispered, turned his hand to squeeze Trowa’s.

“I’m glad you’re safe,” Trowa admitted.

“Stay with me?”

“I am. I’m here.”

“No,” Quatre whispered, feeling the drowsiness in his limbs creeping up his body. “I mean, for forever.”

“We’ll see,” Trowa said, ambiguously, even knowing that it was a lie. He had a family to go home to.

In fact, this whole appeasement exercise made him remember Trowa Barton – the real Trowa. There were times that _this_ Trowa would find _that_ Towa drunk. Shit-faced drunk. And this Trowa would help him back to his quarters, help him to a glass of water, and would pacify him. His hands would be all over this Trowa, not exactly sexually, but just there, gripping out for him like he was a lifeline. And this Trowa would make empty promises and encouragements that he didn’t mean and that would just as easily be forgotten by that Trowa in the morning.

“I would give you a shuttle,” Quatre murmured, “Your own jet so you could see Cathy whenever you wanted.”

“Thank you. That’s kind,” Trowa said, allowing Quatre’s hand to clutch onto his.

“I’d give you a million flutes,” Quatre continues his list and Trowa’s lips quirk on their own at this.

“A million, huh?”

“Oh my gosh, so many of them,” Quatre mumbled, “Big ones, small ones. Wood…Metal…Gundanium!”

“That would be a very tough flute.”

“The toughest, Trowa…for you. But we could play together again.”

“Sure, of course.”

Quatre’s dazed eyes grew somber and wanting. “I think about that all the time. I think about us playing again. I think about it…”

“I do, too,” Trowa confessed, honestly, not that Quatre could tell the difference. Trowa did, though. He remembered that compulsion to join the song, missed the way they melded their styles together. How grateful he had been to know a musical instrument so that he could join in. As equals.

“You were so beautiful…”

Again, that heat and stoicism rising in Trowa, outwardly cold but inside there was insecurity and hunger. He swallowed down that illusion and his stupid yearnings as Quatre laid beside him, wounded and overpowered by the burn of medication and blood loss. This didn’t mean anything. He told himself forcefully. Quatre didn't mean anything.

Why did this have to be so hard?

“Tha-”

“You _are_ so beautiful, Trowa,” Quatre interrupted, as his glassy eyes tried to follow Trowa’s form, despite the heaviness and exhaustion, “I love you. I’ve always loved you.”

Trowa had no easy words that he could push out. Everything that was easy just crumpled at the eagerness in those words. He struggled to tell his heart, warn his hope, that these words were fluid and amorphous. They weren’t real. They just tumbled out of the kaleidoscope of relief, injury and medication.

_But, god, did they hurt._

They were the words Trowa had wanted to hear for so long. _For so long._

But not like this.

“Why are you sad?” Quatre’s soft voice cut in him deeper, digging into the meat of his heart and burning there, inflaming his passion and hope, while his brain tried to rationalize it away. No, it wasn’t real. No, he shouldn’t feel them. No, it was to be wiped away, just as Quatre’s blood was. Those words weren’t his to keep. Those feelings, that connection, were not his to have.

“Thank you, Quatre,” he said, squeezed that hand, “Please get some sleep. Please just try. For me.”

“For you,” Quatre agreed, closed his eyes and held Trowa’s hand tightly, as if fighting sleep by grasping that one connection to reality. However, soon the grip softened and Trowa retrieved his hand without a sound.

This was too hard. But he had promised. To Rashid. To himself. To Quatre, who, before surgery, clutched onto him, face sweating in pain, and begged, “Please don’t go- Please. Not now- Please.”

Trowa closed his own eyes, felt burdened under their weight, but didn’t sleep. He just wondered when the next round of questions would begin. If Quatre would add this to the mix. If Quatre would tell him, over and over, that he was loved and how painful that would be. How he would have to hear those words, over and over, just as meaningless as the last time, just as forgotten in the morning.

And he would nod, hold that hand, and repeat, over and over, “Thank you, Quatre. Thank you.”


End file.
